Elections: ballots.

(1) Existing law defines a "ballot" for election law purposes to include an electronic touchscreen upon which appears the names of candidates and ballot titles of measures to be voted on by touching the designated area of the screen for systems that do not contain a paper ballot. This bill would expand the electronic touchscreen systems that qualify as ballots by eliminating the requirement that the systems not contain paper ballots if the votes are tabulated manually or by optical scanning equipment. (2) Existing law prohibits a paper cast vote record, as defined, from being considered a ballot. This bill would allow a paper cast vote record to be considered a ballot, but only if the paper cast vote record is generated on a voting device or machine that complies with ballot layout requirements and is tabulated by a separate device from the device that created the paper cast vote record. (3) Existing law imposes ballot layout specifications, including specific requirements relating to the size and spacing of text. This bill would make various changes to these specifications, which would allow more flexibility in ballot layout. The changes would include allowing the use of objects other than squares for voters to make selections.